The Problem Is Not The Problem

In dealing with life’s hardships, we naturally identify what is broken, what emotions need to be controlled, and which circumstances need to get better. That is part of the human drive to survive. But there is something beyond brokenness, beyond any emotions we wish would go away. In the willingness to directly meet the pain we fear, rather than trying to control or get rid of it, there is a life-changing discovery of what is whole, complete, and has no need of fixing.

Transcript

But just for the purposes of investigation,

For discovering a why and a how that has not been discovered,

Let's go together where you don't want to go.

Hello and welcome to Being Yourself Self-Inquiry with Gangaji.

My name is Barbara Denempont.

I feel a little subdued today.

I think as I have been reflecting on this particular clip that I'm going to share with you today,

It's actually quite funny,

But also quite deep,

Quite serious,

All at the same time.

Gangaji has often shared this invitation to stop fixing yourself.

And I told her even recently that that's the most radical thing I've ever heard.

Such a radical invitation.

And it's such an important one.

And as we face so much that needs to be fixed,

Or at least we feel has to be fixed,

It's really an important moment in any of our lives to take that instant to stop,

To be still,

And to meet whatever is arising.

It has a consequence,

Of course,

For our own lives.

But as this piece also demonstrates,

It touches much more than just our own lives.

I work with people with mental health problems.

You work with people with mental health problems,

Yes.

And you have some yourself.

Wow.

Oh,

Certainly not.

That's all right,

Everyone here does too.

But um,

I see.

He'll take care of this.

Oh,

You relax.

You relax,

Look here.

Well,

You know,

Most of my clients,

They're in the victim role,

And they are very self-destructive.

And we try to.

.

.

Is that familiar?

Just take a moment.

That is a mental health problem,

Isn't it?

Yeah,

And it makes me sad.

If I see people destroy their opportunities,

It makes me sad.

So you become victimized by their victim story.

That's correct.

I want them to do good for themselves.

You want them so they'll stop bothering you with their victim story.

I know what you mean.

I wish you would wake up so I could take a walk.

I want them to be happy.

Yes,

Be happy,

Damn it.

You're bringing me down again.

I can relate to your story.

It's an edge,

Isn't it?

It's an edge to work with people who are suffering greatly.

Who want to suffer.

Yes,

Who want to suffer,

And you don't want to suffer.

So how is it you are suffering?

I don't get it.

Why do they do that to themselves?

I'm pointing to how it is they do it.

Why do they do that to you?

They do it exactly the same reason you do it to yourself.

I mean I'm usually trying to be happy.

But not right now.

Well,

Same thing,

They're trying to be happy.

They're trying to be happy,

Very desperately.

So how is it,

Though,

I'm quite serious in this,

How is it their suffering makes you unhappy?

What is it you have to do with their suffering to make yourself unhappy with it?

Well,

It's their suffering,

I suppose.

Well,

That's true,

That's fine,

We know that.

But there's something that happens that makes it your suffering.

And I just want to know what that is.

Because then you will have a real cue,

Or clue,

As to what their,

The dynamic that they try to be happy and can't be happy,

How that operates.

Maybe letting go of the sense to be responsible for the happiness.

Because now you're looking for a solution.

I'm asking you to look and see what is the mechanism.

What is the mechanism in your thought process?

What is the moment where their suffering makes you unhappy?

I'm not saying it's a bad thing.

I don't think it is a bad thing.

So I'm not saying it's something you should correct.

I think it's actually quite useful.

Then you get to experience unhappiness and that actually,

Your heart can break even wider.

So I'm not saying correct this.

But your question to me was,

Why is it they do this?

How is it they do this?

And the answer to that is found in how and why you do this.

Okay.

So are you aware of some story that you tell yourself about,

I mean take a particular client in your mind that after you have been with,

You are sad because they won't get off it or they won't stop suffering.

What do you tell yourself?

Well I tell myself this is an intelligent person and they ought to know.

This tries to be spiritual,

Reads literature,

So they ought to know their God and live as if they were.

That's right.

And how come they can't translate what they know into their actions?

Yes,

So now we're speaking of the paradox.

This has brought exactly the point of our meeting today.

This is an intelligent being who has had experiences of God,

Spiritual experiences,

And yet still they continue to be unhappy,

To suffer.

They can see what they do,

They can see the consequences of what they do,

So we're not speaking of someone who can't see that.

No,

I'm talking about intelligent people.

Yes,

Good.

I'm happy you are because that's where the paradox is.

Yes.

So if you don't fix this paradox in yourself or in them just for a moment,

I love that your work is to fix it,

But just for this moment you don't fix it with philosophy and you don't fix it with religion.

You don't fix it with what they should be doing,

You don't fix it with what they are doing.

You just meet the paradox.

Here is intelligence and gross ignorance because you're speaking of ignorance.

Yes.

How is it that the two coexist?

I don't know.

That's the beginning.

And in that saying,

I don't know,

Is there an energy that you feel or an emotion?

I don't want to say sadness.

But there is.

There is sadness there,

I can see it.

Yes,

There's nothing wrong with that.

What's wrong with sadness?

You see in our simplistic view of spirituality we keep sadness out.

But what if you invite this sadness that is there in,

Closer.

What if you meet this sadness with your full being,

With your full intelligence?

Not with spiritual or psychological or philosophical shields,

But just directly.

I get like a slight downward,

Slight.

Yes,

So let's go down,

We go together.

No,

Okay.

It's a drop in,

Something deeper even than sadness.

I don't want to.

I know,

I understand that.

But just for the purposes of investigation,

For discovering a why and a how that has not been discovered,

Let's go together where you don't want to go.

What are you experiencing?

Like,

Like hopelessness here?

Yes,

That's right,

That's deeper even than sadness.

So let us go into hopelessness just as you went into sadness.

Not keeping it out because it's not spiritual,

It's not intelligent,

It's not psychologically hip.

But just to meet it,

Not indulging it with some story,

But meeting it with your intelligence.

It feels like dissolving of everything,

Everything is dissolving and there is no more form.

Yes,

Let it go,

Just for our purposes,

Let it all go.

And this experience of dissolution,

Which is different from a theory of dissolution,

And the direct experience.

Actually,

For me that's okay.

It feels all right,

Doesn't it?

For me it does.

For everyone.

It's like,

Well who cares really?

Really,

But not a casual who cares,

It's really a beautiful experience.

It's an experience of joy and laughter.

Yes,

It's the opposite of control.

So you have clearly experienced that in other realms.

I am.

But in this realm of like being with your clients or being with aspects of yourself without the shield of either substance or practice or mantra or amulet or ritual,

Without the shield of that and there is nothing wrong with any of that.

It all has its place,

It's all beautiful,

It all serves.

But in a moment of just nakedly meeting what hasn't been met,

Then there is another opportunity for dissolution.

It's not bad.

At the very least it's not bad.

And in the beginning of not wanting to go there,

There is a sense of it's bad.

Yes,

That's right,

That's right.

I don't want to go there.

That's right.

So we go together in a moment while you have resisted,

Even without knowing it,

Or resisted in others as you were speaking,

In your clients,

Their suffering,

Their sadness.

If there is resistance to it,

It doesn't matter if it's in them or if it's in you,

It's really all the same.

There is a possibility to meet it in a deeper,

Conscious,

Naked way that has nothing as the cause of the dissolution other than the meeting.

I used to love to do acid when in the seventies.

Me too.

You look like it.

I've sort of,

You know,

Trying to pass here.

Well,

I only did it four or five times,

But it was incredible.

And I was telling somebody the other day,

There were lots of incredible aspects to it,

But the most incredible,

The most lasting,

Incredible,

Useful aspect was that if I struggled against it as it started to come on,

It's like,

Oh my God,

I forgot,

This is big.

I shouldn't have done this.

This was a mistake.

Not today.

It's the wrong setting.

I was in hell,

And it got worse and worse and worse.

In a moment of,

Okay,

It happened.

It's here.

It's in the system.

It lasts as long as it lasts.

I'm here with it.

There's bliss.

Better than not bad.

There's clarity,

There's seeing,

Because surrender has occurred.

When everything was to say no,

In a moment it's like,

Well,

Okay.

So if you've never done acid,

It's like having a baby.

I've also told this story when I had my first baby.

I mean,

You know,

I was twenty-five years old,

But I was a really young twenty-five years old,

And I was having my pregnancy and everything was fine,

And then it came time to have the baby,

And I had labor pains.

And everybody was like,

What?

This is really big.

This is huge,

And this is impossible.

And I had no idea it would hurt like this.

Not a clue that it would hurt like this.

And I made a mistake,

And I would like to get out of it.

I mean,

I actually had that thought.

You know,

I mean,

It came up,

This is a mistake.

Wait a minute.

But there's also,

With the stupidity,

There's some intelligence,

So it's like,

You can't get out of it.

It's too late.

You made the mistake nine months ago.

So,

You can surrender.

You can surrender.

In those days it was surrender to the drugs that they gave you.

You couldn't feel anything,

But before the drugs came on,

There was a moment of just,

Okay,

It's here.

I'll need it.

And in that,

It doesn't mean there's not pain.

It doesn't mean that you don't have to see something you didn't want to see,

And what you see is painful.

It can be intensely painful.

But the paradox is,

In the seeing of it,

Without it going away,

Without it needing to go away,

It goes away.

And with it needing to go away,

It stays.

Mm-hmm.

Got you.

Yes,

You do.

You do.

Thank you.

It's so beautiful,

Actually,

What occurred up here.

Really beautiful.

You're not sad anymore,

And that's beautiful.

There's the sadness itself,

The meeting of the sadness itself that revealed this.

So,

In our feeling not sad,

We think,

Usually,

Oh good,

Sadness is gone,

I hope it doesn't come back,

Because it was sadness that was the problem.

Sadness is not the problem.

The paradox is not the problem.

That's a good one.

The paradox is not the problem.

We could make a bumper sticker out of that.

Don't,

Though.

Please.

The problem is not the problem.

It's a relationship.

It creates a problem.

It's a relationship of grasping or rejecting.

Very basic.

And we are programmed,

Very basically,

To grasp and reject.

That's part of the program.

The invitation is to not bend in either direction for one instant,

And then not bend in either direction that is revealed in that one instant.

Then grasping and rejecting also are not a problem.

This will never be figured out logically,

Ever.

Although if you do,

You let me know.

It's possible.

What a true opportunity this is to,

To meet what's arising without moving,

Without avoiding.

What a gift.

It reveals what really has no need of fixing and has no need of hope.

What's already whole and complete.

That is this invitation,

And I hope this podcast supports you in that discovery,

And I hope you can make good use of everything that's offered on the Gangaji website.

Gangaji.

Org.

That's g-a-n-g-a-j-i dot o-r-g.

And of course,

We'd love to welcome you to Gangaji's monthly meetings.

This is all here in support of that discovery.

And I just,

I just feel so grateful.

Thank you for listening.

This is Barbara Denempont.

Until next time.

Reviews

I really enjoy and appreciate this conversation with Gangaji, although at the very beginning, I thought, if that was me sitting in the hot seat, I would be feeling very self-conscious and maybe a little shut down. I was a little worried for the seeker. And I wondered about my ability to stay with what was happening, if that had been me. But as the conversation continued, I could feel that she was guiding somewhere that I could personally really benefit from, and I was glad to get the feeling that the seeker seemed to be staying with her own experience. And because the app is asking me for my feedback, I will also let you know that I don’t really enjoy the intro and outro.

Incredible insight thank you

I needed to hear this today; I enjoyed the blend of levity and gravity.

Amazing and funny

I really like you Gangaji! Thank you for this funny and serious talk at the same time!

Unbelievable, and believable…. touches deeply ✨
A glimpse of light in this darkness of mine 🙏🏻

Fantastic, thank you !

So, so good!! Thank you! 🙏🏼💖

Wonderful as usual

right on time, as always 🤍

That was very nice and helpful! Thank you so much 😊

Amazing 🙏❤️

Love the message

Taking my Hand and going with me...what a great advice. 💝🙏

Better than Acid...

'... not grasping or rejecting...,' therefore simply allowing whatever is- makes it 'no problem '.

Oh wow - Timely message. Thank you 🙏 totally receive and appreciate your wisdom

X

Beautiful 🙏🏻

This was something special. Wow. Thank you so much. 💕🙏🧚🏻🙌🏻🕊

Love the laughs, teaching is just beyond my understanding, maybe some day soon….